Que Honda!

 Scott with Yolanda and her family.

Scott with Marlen (who was baptized a few weeks ago) and her mother Felicitas.

Hey I want to just start off by recognizing my awesome Uncle Lee! I heard that you went through another tough hernia surgery and I just want you to know how much I love you and how often I think of you and the sacrifice you made for my dad and my family. Every time I talk about sacrifice here on the mission, I think of the great example you are. Sometimes we think life is hard, and many think living the commandments are hard, but they just don’t understand the meaning of the word sacrifice. If everyone could have a heart like you, Uncle Lee, this world would be a lot different, and we would sure see many more kind things being done. So thanks a lot bud, and I love you lots!

Now on to my exciting week! We didn’t have too much success this week because I felt like we were running from place to place, but we did end off the week with two amazing baptisms! The Hermana Felicitas and the Hermana Yolanda! I had the privilege to baptize Felicitas and a Bishop from a different ward (who is a good friend of Yolanda) got to baptize her. The Bishop of the other ward was actually the one who brought Yolanda to the open house with one of her daughters. Yolanda invited her whole entire family to her baptism, so it was a really special day for everyone! I was really grateful and happy to see all of the progress that the two of them have made in this last week! The story of Hermana Felicitas was really a great miracle that I will always remember. Her faith has grown soo much in this time and the last trial of her faith that she had was cutting out coffee completely from her life. Like I have mentioned before, her husband is really sick so Felicitas is up with him all night and has to help him with the dialysis of his blood 5 different times during the day. With such little sleep it is really hard for her to stay up and have the energy to keep pushing forward. Because of that she had been using coffee to help give her the kick during the day. Well with such great faith in this last week she told us that she had thrown it all away and that she wasn’t even going to look at coffee again. She was so determined on getting baptized, and that is exactly what she did. It was a really great experience and you could see the difference on her face the day of her baptism. 

Well we have a couple other people that are progressing and I think that a couple of them should be getting baptized as well in this week but I will let you know everything about them in my next letter. I like to leave you guys with a little of suspense, so you appreciate the surprises that I leave with you all. 

I gotta say when I saw the picture of lee in all of his football pads I was pretty jealous! I mean why in the heck didn’t I ever play football? You are definitely 10 times better looking than you really are when you are in all of your football pads! haha. I mean what girl doesn’t want a guy in those tight little football pants! Fetch i should have played football! haha. Thanks for all of the pictures! I am glad that you are all just having a great time! It would be nice if my other brothers remembered me every once and a while! haha. Like Nick I think he is just so wrapped up in the college life that he doesn’t even want to write me anymore!!! And lee, well i don’t even know if he is still alive, except for the photos! And Christian, I thought I was your favorite brother bro!!! 

Well I took all of my pants and my blue suit to get slim fitted. To be honest I have no idea who sold me the suit, but I think they measured the wrong guy! haha. They probably mixed up my measurements with a 300 pound guy because I was swimming in it my whole mission! 

More next week. I love you all,

Elder Holmes

VIVA MEXICO!

Well time is flying by really fast for me in my mission, and now one of the hardest things for me is to keep  in contact with everyone that writes me! I have been pretty lame and this is literally the only letter that I  have the chance to write every week! So I hope those that haven’t received a letter from me, don’t taken  offense. With the time, you really just lose yourself in the work. I don’t know where the time is going and  why it is passing by so fast! SO VIVA MEXICO to everyone! On Saturday, the 15th, we celebrated the Independence Day here in  Mexico and it was really fun to be in this area. Like I have told you guys, this area is really typical Mexico  and whenever there are fiestas, the whole town is transformed. There were a ton of people coming into  town this whole week and the center was a really fun site. There were a bunch of people selling and they  had live bands going on all day. Obviously, we didn’t have the time to check it all out, but the Hermana  Mayra made us a really typical mexican dish called Pazolli. She also made us something called chilles en  nogadas and they are extremely famous here at this time of year. If you were to go buy one of those chilles  in a restaurant, you would find them at about 200 pesos! So that was really nice of them. The bummer for  everyone else is that at 9 o clock it started to rain like crazy and I think it kind of pooped the party! haha.  It was a fun time to see all of the mexicans with all of their traditions during the week! So as for this week with the investigators, everything went pretty well for us. The hermana Yolanda, who  we found in the open house we did, is planning to have her baptism this week, as well as the mom of  Marlen (the 20 year old girl). Her name is Felicitas and she has also shown a lot of progress. So if  everything works out just perfectly, we should have those baptisms on Saturday in the afternoon! Be  praying for us!! Also we had a great find this week of a lady named Lucia and her daughter Leslie. They  were references from a young couple in the ward. This week the standards of excellence in our mission  changed a little bit, and now we have to have 20 lessons with members and we need to contact 10  references every week. It is a lot different than before and we are all focusing more on just working with  the members to have the success and to find the escojidos.  But anyways, Lucia and her daughter Leslie  accepted during the week to be baptized and they both came to church on Sunday. We had a super spiritual  experience with her, and she felt really amazing in the church. She and her husband need to get married, so  we will see how everything turns out with them.  Well this last week I pulled out 1200 pesos (almost 100 bucks) and that helped me buy a nice new man  purse that I use everyday, fix some of my pants with a seamstress, and buy three new long sleeve shirts!  We will see if I buy a new pair of shoes here in the next couple weeks, as well! This is my “happy birthday  to me”!!!  Love you all and miss you a bunch. Elder Holmes I can’t believe that I forgot to tell you guys about the talent show that we had as a ward about a week ago!  Obviously I had to show the ward how I could snort the spaghetti noodle up my nose and out my mouth!  haha! I was the hit of the show!!  Here is a photo of it, along with one of our entire zone of Cuautitlan,  and the best of all, when we went bowling today with some of the missionaries.  We had a great time!

"I Knew This Was Where I Needed to Be"

Scott mentions his birthday in his e-mail today.  It's not until the 22nd of October, but he is remembering how long the mail takes.  I know he would love to get a card from any of you who might have the chance.  His mailing address is: 

Elder Scott Holmes

Mexico Mexico City North Mission

Apartado Postal #98

54740 Cuautitlan Izcalli, Edo. De Mexico

MEXICO

Thanks for being so awesome in your support of him!  We sure appreciate it and love you all.

Carolann 

Well I want to say happy birthday to Eric Cassity and Joey Winters for this week, and I want you to know that I am thinking of you both and hope that you have awesome days this week!

Well as for me, I am pretty wiped out today, because we went to play on a brand new soccer field that belongs to one of the hermanos in our ward. They just built the field and it is directly behind our house! It is an astroturf field, and it is super dope! We had a lot of fun playing with some of the missionaries from the zone and the hermano that is from our ward. I played pretty well but got extremely tired, really fast, because I am extremely out of shape!

This week went pretty well for us, but we are also facing some difficulties in our area and in the zone. I dont have too much time to write today so it might be a little short, but I will let you know more next week on how all of our investigators are progressing. I do want to tell you one miracle that we had yesterday in the church. This lady, who is a family member of one of the members of our ward, came to the church all by herself yesterday. Her name is Maria, and she is pretty awesome! We were able to talk to her about baptism and also put a date with her to be baptized on the 23rd of this month. She told us "Yes I would love to be baptized. I don't even need to think about it. Right when I walked into this church, I knew that it was where I needed to be in my life." Wow! What an awesome testimony builder for me and my companion, that there are people that are ready and waiting, and all they need to do is enter God's church and they will feel it.

Well we aren't too sure about some of our investigators at this point, so I will let you know how they all progress next week. Sorry for the weak email, but right now a member is going to take us to the mall to buy a couple of things. Mom, don't worry about sending me anything for my birthday. The jersey for my companion should be just fine. He wants a small, long sleeved Rapids jersey. I think that today I will buy a couple long sleeve white shirts and maybe a pair of shoes. That will be my birthday gift! 

I sure love  you all a lot.

Elder Holmes

A Freaking Awesome Week in Tepotzotlan!

Well this week was a freaking awesome week here for us in Tepotzotlan.

On Saturday Mayra and Adriann got married!! It was a miracle, and we were extremely happy for the both of them! They seem extremely happy now, and i feel like we have really helped them change their lives. Also that very same day, Mayra and her daughter Laura got baptized. That was also an extremely special moment because Mayra asked me to baptize her, and my comp, Elder Neyra, baptized Laura. Hermano Adriann is progressing really well too, and he is still really excited about the church and also about getting baptized. This guy is a total stud. His first Sunday in the church he stopped smoking completely and after ten years of living with his wife, he got married on Saturday. I love him a lot, and i know that he will keep progressing just great. Just a little fun fact about Mayra and how awesome she is:  for the last two weeks she has been giving classes to the relief society on how to make diferent foods. Two weeks ago she did donuts and last week she taught them how to make empenadas. All of the hermanas already love her, and she feels really great sharing all her different talents with them, as well.

Now on to the other story, of Marlen. She also progressed really well in this week and we had a really awesome baptismal service for her on Sunday. Her dad was able to come (who is really sick) and i think that he really enjoyed it as well. We are going to keep working with her mom this week, and we will see how everything turns out. She is really awesome, and another miracle that my comp and I have received from our Heavenly Father.

So on Friday we had the zone leader meeting and it was fun to see all of the other missionaries that I have gotten to know throughout my time here in Mexico. One who has been a really good friend to me has been Elder Marquez. We were in Queretaro together and he taught me a lot of good stuff. SO in the junta on Friday, I was saying how sick it would be if we could be comps. I thought that there was no chance, but when they gave us the changes on Saturday night, they surprised us by moving Elder Neyra to Queretaro and putting Elder Marquez with me here. It was kind of a big surprise, because I thought that I was going to end up killing Elder Neyra (killing is used here in missionaries terms btw for when missionaries finish their missions). haha. But the change came as a surprise to many, and Elder Neyra left a couple different people here pretty sad. Elder Marquez and i have already started off great, and have been talking all day about everything new that has gone on. I think that we will have a really great time together with a lot of success! I will miss Elder Neyra, but the things always hapen for a reason, so we will see what the Lord has planned for us now!

I sure love you all,

Elder Holmes

so here are some of my pics from this week! the baptisms of marlen, mayra, and laura. A pic with elder marquez if you forgot what he looked like (the elder in the middle is also one of my good friends and they just called him as assistant.) and then one with a hermano in my ward who is really chill. His name is rafa! it was his birthday and i gave him my shirt because he really liked it when we played soccer one day. and also one last photo with elder neyra